UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday urged Africa to take “peaceful action” to combat rising violence as the continent’s leaders held their annual summit in Addis Ababa.
ad
Africa reeling from a record drought in the Horn and deadly violence in the Sahel region and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the African Union (AU) meeting aimed at solving this problem and jumpstarting the shaky free trade pact.
Most of the sessions at the two-day summit will be held behind closed doors at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital.
But eyes will be on the bloc to see if it can achieve a ceasefire in the Sahel and eastern DRC where the M23 militia has seized swathes of territory and fueled a diplomatic row between Kinshasa and the Rwandan government, which it accuses of supporting the rebels.
“I am deeply concerned about the escalation of violence by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the rise of terrorist groups in the Sahel and elsewhere,” Guterres said at the meeting.
“The peace mechanism is faltering,” the UN secretary-general warned. However, he urged the bloc to “continue to fight for peace”.
At a mini-summit on Friday, the leaders of the seven countries of the East African Community urged all armed groups to withdraw from the territory they controlled in eastern DRC by the end of next month.
Guterres met with several African leaders on Friday, including Rwandan President Paul Kagame, to discuss the crisis in Congo.
ad